Google ads are the most effective advertising method for roofing contractors. These allow you to be at the top of search results on the most popular search engine the moment a prospect searches for your services. Although the benefits are high, google ads for roofing are competitive, meaning the bid for a click is expensive. You must set up correctly the first time in order to not lose a great amount of ad spend at launch.
Determine Location
Depending on where you are located may change how you target your location. If you are in an area where there aren't any roofers for miles, you may want to cast your net wide. If you are in a very densely populated area like San Francisco CA, you may want to keep the ads to only your city. The most popular targeting methods for roofing are:
City you are located
County you are located
Zip code
Five mile radius around any of the above
Keyword Research
Once you have determined your location, you want to begin researching the keywords most suited for your area. Go to Google Keyword Planner and begin by narrowing the location to match the parameters you will use in your campaign. Best practice for roofers is to start with using only exact and phrase match keywords to eliminate irelevant clicks. I have attached a screenshot below with inspiration you can use to begin. Keywords can include:
[Keyword] “near me”
[Keyword] [City]
[Specific Service]
“Roofing” companies
“Affordable” [Service]
[Roofing Material] Installation
[Roofing type] Installation
These are great to begin your research. Be creative and think of your own as well. You have to ask yourself what you would type as your potential client in order to find your service. If you are more specific with your keywords, your targeted ad will resonate better with potential prospects. For example, a prospect searches “clay tile roofing installation” they will likely click your ad if the title text of the ad is specific to their query for example, “Affordable Clay Tile Roofing Installation | San Francisco”.
Sort keywords by monthly search volume and start going down the list and checking the box next to the keywords which are most relevant, have decent search volume, and the average bids are not incredibly high. A range of $0-$10 a click is a great place to start (especially if you are just beginning). Add around 20-50 keywords to your plan. Make sure to group keywords with different intent in their own separate ad groups, so you can later customize ads and landing pages to cater to their query. Once you are done you will be able to see forecasts of your results.
What kind of ad?
The most effective ad types for roofing companies are search ads. You can do one of the following:
Regular search ad: You will need a landing page
Or if your resources are limited a
Call Only Ad
When starting off do not check the “display network” option.
You will start running your campaign with the bid strategy “clicks” until your ads start generating enough conversions to switch to “conversions”. You will need at least 50 conversions in week to use this. For roofing ads I would begin with a $5 Max CPC.
Create an Engaging Landing Page
Based on the keywords in your plan you must create a landing page that captures the intent of the searchers. After the prospect clicks, they should be smoothly guided through a funnel which ultimately ends in the action you want the potential lead to take (quote request or a call). If you have the resources you will have specific landing pages specific for each service, roofing material, type of project (commercial/residential), etc. Do not just guide prospects to your website or homepage, instead easily create customized landing pages using services such as Unbounce or Click Funnels.
A funnel for roofers that works for us is a landing page custom to the specific roofing service with a limited time discount, leading to a button saying “start your discounted quote”, this leads to the quote/contact form you have set up. Once the form is submitted you can use Zapier to have it come directly to your phone, email, or anywhere most convenient for you.
Set Up Conversion Tracking
The easiest way to track conversions is using Google Tag Manager. You can find many guides on how to set up tracking on YouTube, basically you will install the tag in your <head> section, use the preview function to determine unique attributes to an action you want to track, and set up triggers based on these attributes. Navigate to the conversions section in your Google Ads account to configure this properly.
Conversion tracking is very useful when it comes to tracking calls, contact form submissions, quote requests, and more. If you are putting a phone number in your ad, it is best to have a unique number which routes to your phone through a service like Google Voice for example, so you can track calls even when they don't come in directly from the call button.
Set up Extensions
The more extensions you incorporate into your ad the more real estate it will take up on the screen. You must set up the following:
Sitelink Extensions
Callout Extensions
Structures Snippets
Location Extensions
Call Extensions
Price Extensions
You can find many great videos on how to set these up. Remember when linking to anything in your ad, make sure it is relevant to the audience captured by the search queries you chose in Keyword Planner.
Write Engaging Ad Copy
When creating ads best practice is to AB test two regular ads, and create one responsive search ad. Write ad copy specific to the keyword in the ad group the ad is in. The copy must be clear and have something engaging like a good offer, unique aspect of your service, etc.
Monitor and Optimize
Pay attention to the metrics coming in. Most importantly, you want to keep an eye on Impressions, CPC, CTR, Spend, and Conversions. Impressions tell you your ad is being shown. CPC will state how much you are paying every time a prospect clicks on your ad. You can adjust your bid cap accordingly. CTR shows how engaged your prospects are with your ad, the higher the CTR % the more engaged. Spend is obviously very crucial to make sure you are within your budget and your spend is spread the way you wish among ad groups and keywords. Finally, conversion late will tell you how many of those clicking actually took the action you wanted them to (for example an estimate request).
Once your ad has ran for about a week or has spent at least $500, you can dive into your search term report. Here you can see exactly what prospects are searching to find you. Use these to your advantage by taking keywords that have high CTR or high conversion rates and adding them as an exact match keyword to your campaign. Also see if any keywords are receiving clicks that are not performing and add these to your negative keyword list. You can also shut off underperforming keywords. We usually switch a keyword to negative if it has received 10 clicks without a conversion action.
If you follow all these best practices for making Google ads for roofing, you will beat out your competition in no time and be on your way to quality leads at the volume you can handle.
CG Digital Media Can Help
If you have any questions about the strategies we discussed, give us a call or shoot us a message and we will be happy to discuss with you.
If you are too occupied and would like truly professional advertising that works for you, we offer a fully managed solution. We work with you to create a fully custom advertising plan and manage your marketing 100%. We expose you to all the top marketing channels to make sure you're present in front of potential customers. All of our creatives are done in-house, resulting in beautiful writing, images, pages, and videos that represent the quality of your treatment.
You can view more testimonials here. For specifics about the services we offer, visit our packages page or give us a call at (855) 909-0908. We look forward to working with you.
